IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/pubeco/v166y2018icp145-161.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The arsenal of democracy: Production and politics during WWII

Author

Listed:
  • Rhode, Paul W.
  • Snyder, Jr., James M.
  • Strumpf, Koleman

Abstract

We study the geographic distribution of military supply contracts during World War II. This is a unique case, where $3 trillion current day dollars was spent. We find robust evidence consistent with the hypothesis that economic factors dominated the allocation of supply contracts, and that political factors—or at least winning the 1944 presidential election—were at best of secondary importance. General industrial capacity in 1939, as well as specialized industrial capacity for aircraft production, are strong predictors of contract spending across states. Electoral college pivot probabilities are weak predictors of contract (and new facilities) spending, and under the most plausible assumptions they are essentially unrelated to spending. This is true over the entire period 1940–1944, and also for shorter periods leading up to the election in November 1944. That is, we find no evidence of an electoral cycle in the distribution of funds.

Suggested Citation

  • Rhode, Paul W. & Snyder, Jr., James M. & Strumpf, Koleman, 2018. "The arsenal of democracy: Production and politics during WWII," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 145-161.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:166:y:2018:i:c:p:145-161
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.08.010
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272718301543
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2018.08.010?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Battaglini & Stephen Coate, 2008. "A Dynamic Theory of Public Spending, Taxation, and Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 201-236, March.
    2. Assar Lindbeck & Jörgen Weibull, 1987. "Balanced-budget redistribution as the outcome of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 273-297, January.
    3. Wright, Gavin, 1974. "The Political Economy of New Deal Spending: An Econometric Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 56(1), pages 30-38, February.
    4. Christopher R. Berry & Anthony Fowler, 2016. "Cardinals or Clerics? Congressional Committees and the Distribution of Pork," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 60(3), pages 692-708, July.
    5. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2009. "The Origins of State Capacity: Property Rights, Taxation, and Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1218-1244, September.
    6. Rhode, Paul W. & Snyder, Jr., James M. & Strumpf, Koleman, 2018. "The arsenal of democracy: Production and politics during WWII," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 145-161.
    7. Dixit, Avinash & Londregan, John, 1995. "Redistributive Politics and Economic Efficiency," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 89(4), pages 856-866, December.
    8. Wallis, John Joseph, 1987. "Employment, Politics, and Economic Recovery during the Great Depression," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 69(3), pages 516-520, August.
    9. Dynes, Adam M. & Huber, Gregory A., 2015. "Partisanship and the Allocation of Federal Spending: Do Same-Party Legislators or Voters Benefit from Shared Party Affiliation with the President and House Majority?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 109(1), pages 172-186, February.
    10. Wallis, John Joseph, 1991. "The Political Economy of New Deal Fiscal Federalism," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 29(3), pages 510-524, July.
    11. Larcinese, Valentino & Snyder, James M. & Testa, Cecilia, 2013. "Testing Models of Distributive Politics using Exit Polls to Measure Voters’ Preferences and Partisanship," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 845-875, October.
    12. Wallis, John Joseph, 1998. "The Political Economy of New Deal Spending Revisited, Again: With and without Nevada," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 140-170, April.
    13. Fishback, Price V. & Kantor, Shawn & Wallis, John Joseph, 2003. "Can the New Deal's three Rs be rehabilitated? A program-by-program, county-by-county analysis," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 278-307, July.
    14. Valentino Larcinese & Leonzio Rizzo & Cecilia Testa, 2005. "Allocating the US Federal Budget to the States: the Impact of the President," STICERD - Political Economy and Public Policy Paper Series 03, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    15. Price Fishback, 2017. "How Successful Was the New Deal? The Microeconomic Impact of New Deal Spending and Lending Policies in the 1930s," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1435-1485, December.
    16. Alessandro Lizzeri & Nicola Persico, 2005. "A Drawback Of Electoral Competition," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 3(6), pages 1318-1348, December.
    17. Anderson, Gary M & Tollison, Robert D, 1991. "Congressional Influence and Patterns of New Deal Spending, 1933-1939," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(1), pages 161-175, April.
    18. Fishback, Price V. & Horrace, William C. & Kantor, Shawn, 2005. "Did New Deal Grant Programs Stimulate Local Economies? A Study of Federal Grants and Retail Sales During the Great Depression," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 65(1), pages 36-71, March.
    19. Nagler, Jonathan & Leighley, Jan, 1992. "Presidential Campaign Expenditures: Evidence on Allocations and Effects," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 73(3), pages 319-333, April.
    20. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
    21. David Stromberg, 2008. "How the Electoral College Influences Campaigns and Policy: The Probability of Being Florida," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 769-807, June.
    22. Volden, Craig & Wiseman, Alan E., 2007. "Bargaining in Legislatures over Particularistic and Collective Goods," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 101(1), pages 79-92, February.
    23. Leblanc, William & Snyder, James Jr. & Tripathi, Micky, 2000. "Majority-rule bargaining and the under provision of public investment goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 21-47, January.
    24. John Joseph Wallis, 1996. "What Determines the Allocation of National Government Grants to the States?," NBER Historical Working Papers 0090, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Daniel Cardona & Antoni Rubí-Barceló, 2013. "On the optimality of bargaining outcomes in the Collective-Particularistic multilateral bargaining game," DEA Working Papers 53, Universitat de les Illes Balears, Departament d'Economía Aplicada.
    26. Colantoni, Claude S. & Levesque, Terrence J. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1975. "Campaign Resource Allocations Under the Electoral College," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(1), pages 141-154, March.
    27. McCarty, Nolan M., 2000. "Presidential Pork: Executive Veto Power and Distributive Politics," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(1), pages 117-129, March.
    28. Robert K. Fleck, 1999. "Electoral Incentives, Public Policy, and the New Deal Realignment," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(3), pages 377-404, January.
    29. Bateman, Fred & Taylor, Jason E, 2003. "Was "V" for Victory or Votes? A Public Choice Analysis of World War II Federal Spending," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 114(1-2), pages 161-174, January.
    30. Snyder, James M, 1989. "Election Goals and the Allocation of Campaign Resources," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(3), pages 637-660, May.
    31. Paul W. Rhode & Koleman S. Strumpf, 2004. "Historical Presidential Betting Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 127-141, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Anna Aizer & Ryan Boone & Adriana Lleras-Muney & Jonathan Vogel, 2020. "Discrimination and Racial Disparities in Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from WWII," NBER Working Papers 27689, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Ahmed S. Rahman, 2020. "Officer retention and military spending: the rise of the military‐industrial complex during the Second World War," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1074-1096, November.
    3. Rhode, Paul W. & Snyder, Jr., James M. & Strumpf, Koleman, 2018. "The arsenal of democracy: Production and politics during WWII," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 145-161.
    4. Andrew Bossie, 2020. "Monetary and fiscal interactions in the USA during the 1940s," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(1), pages 61-103, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Larcinese, Valentino & Snyder, James M. & Testa, Cecilia, 2013. "Testing Models of Distributive Politics using Exit Polls to Measure Voters’ Preferences and Partisanship," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 845-875, October.
    2. Larcinese, Valentino & Rizzo, Leonzio & Testa, Cecilia, 2005. "Allocating the US federal budget to the states: the impact of the President," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 3611, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Fleck, Robert K., 2013. "Why did the electorate swing between parties during the Great Depression?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 599-619.
    4. Albert Solé-Ollé, 2013. "Inter-regional redistribution through infrastructure investment: tactical or programmatic?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 229-252, July.
    5. David M. Primo & James M. Snyder, Jr., 2010. "Party Strength, the Personal Vote, and Government Spending," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(2), pages 354-370, April.
    6. Price Fishback & Samuel Allen & Jonathan Fox & Brendan Livingston, 2010. "A Patchwork Safety Net: A Survey Of Cliometric Studies Of Income Maintenance Programs In The United States In The First Half Of The Twentieth Century," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 895-940, December.
    7. Price V. Fishback & John Joseph Wallis, 2012. "What Was New About the New Deal?," NBER Working Papers 18271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Marcelin Joanis, 2011. "The road to power: partisan loyalty and the centralized provision of local infrastructure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 146(1), pages 117-143, January.
    9. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:8:y:2007:i:3:p:1-5 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Hanes, Niklas, 2007. "Temporary grant programmes in Sweden and central government behaviour," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 1160-1174, December.
    11. Josip Glaurdić & Vuk Vuković, 2017. "Granting votes: exposing the political bias of intergovernmental grants using the within-between specification for panel data," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 171(1), pages 223-241, April.
    12. Fishback, Price V. & Kantor, Shawn & Wallis, John Joseph, 2003. "Can the New Deal's three Rs be rehabilitated? A program-by-program, county-by-county analysis," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 278-307, July.
    13. Bryan Caplan, 2001. "Has Leviathan Been Bound? A Theory of Imperfectly Constrained Government with Evidence from the States," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(4), pages 825-847, April.
    14. Strömberg, David, 2002. "Optimal Campaigning in Presidential Elections: The Probability of Being Florida," CEPR Discussion Papers 3372, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Jason Taylor & Fred Bateman, 2007. "Does the distribution of New Deal spending reflect an optimal provision of public goods?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 8(3), pages 1-5.
    16. Callais, Justin T & Geloso, Vincent, 2023. "The political economy of lighthouses in antebellum America," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    17. Fishback, Price V. & Horrace, William C. & Kantor, Shawn, 2006. "The impact of New Deal expenditures on mobility during the Great Depression," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 179-222, April.
    18. Abel Fumey, 2018. "Intergovernmental fiscal transfers and tactical political maneuverings: Evidence from Ghana’s District Assemblies Common Fund," WIDER Working Paper Series 031, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    19. John Joseph Wallis & Price Fishback & Shawn Kantor, 2005. "Politics, Relief, and Reform: The Transformation of America's Social Welfare System during the New Deal," NBER Working Papers 11080, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Noel D. Campbell & R. Zachary Finney & David T. Mitchell, 2007. "Hunting the Whale: More Evidence on State Government Leviathans," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 74(2), pages 566-580, October.
    21. Abel Fumey, 2018. "Intergovernmental fiscal transfers and tactical political maneuverings: Evidence from Ghana's District Assemblies Common Fund," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-31, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Distributive politics; Government spending; Presidential elections;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • N42 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:166:y:2018:i:c:p:145-161. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505578 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.